PB 10 for 10 2012

 

This event is being sponsored by Cathy (@cathymere) of Reflect & Refine: Building a Learning Community and Mandy (@mandyrobek) of Enjoy and Embrace Learning. 

Last year was a busy year for me! We had a new addition to our family. She is now five months old. As a teacher, one of my goals for her is to be an avid reader like I was. If you are reading this post, I would assume you are looking for picture book suggestions and possible uses for picture books. I have decided to focus my 10 for 10 on board books this year.

Board books??? I'm not planning on using board books in my classroom. Don't stop reading! Many great board books are a shortened or full version of a picture book for older children. I have also found that board books make great baby shower gifts. As a teacher, I like to make a plug for reading to parents of new children by providing them with a couple of great board books to get them started. It would be also fun to give them a list of other great books along with the gift. I recently learned that my five-year-old niece still enjoys them. I have also found that board books stand the test of time.  I am reading board books with Ariella that I originally purchased for my fourteen year old niece. Board books can withstand the tough love of a toddler.  They are a great investment!

It's a Little Book by Lane Smith 

My little girlie and I love this book because it is fun. It also teaches the purpose of books. She enjoys looking at the pictures. I am looking forward to the future discussions I can see us having about books. Here is the book trailer on You Tube for the full-size picture book: It's a Book by Lane Smith. I love all that technology has to offer but it will never replace books that I can hold in my hands and place on my bookshelf!

How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer and Caroline Jayne Church

"How do I love you?  Let me count the ways.  I love you as the sun loves the bright blue days." This book has a great rhythm and beautiful illustrations.  I love reading it to my little beauty.  The illustrator Caroline Jayne Church has also illustrated I Love You Through and Through.  Good Night, I Love You is a book that she wrote and illustrated. 

Chicka Chicka abc by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

This is the shorter board book version of the well-loved Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  This version is modified and ends where all the little letters fall out of the tree.  As a teacher, I love how the author uses lower case letters in both versions of this book because many children come to school writing their names in all capital letters.  This is one great way to expose little ones to the way letters look!

 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

This is a great classic!  I love the pictures.  It is a great way to introduce colors and some basic animals. The repetitive text is great for little ones.  This will probably be one that my girlie will come to me some day and say that she can read.   Another fabulous Eric Carle book is From Head to Toe, which is great for teaching parts of the body.

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

A great story about the benefits of sharing!  North South books is one of my favorite publishers because it publishes books in English that are written by authors from around the world.  I have found that most of those authors illustrate their books.  One of my favorite books published by North South books is The Best of Friends by Pirkko Vaino. It is never to early to learn how to be a friend.

The Alphabet Book by P.D. Eastman

P.D. Eastman is one of my favorite authors of Dr. Suess books.  This is a book that I will use to help my girlie learn the alphabet.  I like the illustrations and the rhythm of the book.  I also enjoy Fred and Ted from his Big Dog...Little Dog.

 

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss

Well, Fox in Socks is Fox in Socks.  I also like Dr. Suess's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!

 

 

 

 

 

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple

I just love those sheep.  I have given this book often as a baby shower gift.  The rhyming is fun and the illustrations are great.  I look forward to some great laughs with my little one when enjoying this book! We have the picture book for older children, but I still need to add it to our board book collection.

Click, Clack ABC by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin

This is another great alphabet book that I have given as a baby shower gift.  I love the wonderful illustrations of farm animals.  The Big Red Barn is another great farm animal book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Animals (Touch and Feel) by DK Publishing 

I love that this book uses real pictures of animals.  The girlie is already enjoying the touch and feel aspect of this book.  After reading this book, she reaches out to touch other books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is what I want to encourage: 

 

So far, we are off to a great start!  I am thankful to be involved in the PB 10 for !0 again!  This is my second time participating!  Here is my post for the first PB 10 for 10. My first post lists 10 of my favorites from 2010. 

Summer Reading Programs

The greatest way to prevent the summer slide is to keep your children reading. There are many summer reading programs out there that provide incentives for reading. We enrolled in three in our area today. We enrolled in the library summer reading program and the programs at Barnes & Noble and Borders.

Our library program is called BookA-Wocky. At the library we picked up a summer reading record. On the record you keep track of minutes. There is also a spot to keep track of and rate some of the books you have been reading. After reading ten hours and twenty hours of reading, the reader earns a prize. Here is the link to BookA-Wocky in Hennepin County.

Barnes & Noble's program is called Summer Reading Imagination's Destination. The program is for students in first through sixth grade. After reading eight books, the reader will earn a free book. This program requires the reader to make a list of the book and who they would recommend the books to.

Border's summer reading program is called Double-Dog Dare Challenge! The requirements include: reading 10 books, being under the age of twelve, and listing the books you have read. When you meet the requirements you can pick a free book off of the list which can be found on the website. The form for the program is downloadable from the link on the website.

Your turn: What are you doing to keep your children reading this summer?

10 for 10 Picture Books

This event is being sponsored by Cathy (@JustwonderinY) of Reflect & Refine: Building a Learning Community and Mandy of Enjoy and Embrace Learning.

First, I would like to thank @JustwonderinY for encouraging me to get involved in this event. I have been thinking about the importance of writing lately. This was just the nudge I needed to get back to blogging.

It is a difficult task to imagine only being able to have 10 picture books. As I went through my book bins today, I narrowed it down to about 30 favorites. How could I only pick 10? I only allowed myself to pick books that I own. Here is my list:

My first is The Best of Friends by Pirkko Vaino; translated
by J. Alison James. I love this book because it is about how two very different animals become friends. The illustrations are wonderful. It is published by North South Books which translates books from around the world into different languages. I enjoy explaining how it was written in another language and had to be translated for us to enjoy
it.

My second is Rain by Manya Stojic. It is about rain coming to the African savanna. The illustrations are amazing. It is a great book to use when talking about including the five senses in writing. It is also a simple text that can be used when teaching cause and effect. I also love it because the characters are African animals. The author also wrote Snow, which is about the coming of winter.

My third is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I enjoy reading this story and talking about choices. There are times our day just does not go well and there is nothing we could do to change it. Yet, there are days that don't go so well because of the choices we make. How can we make choices so that our days will go well? What can we do for others around us that seem to be having a bad day?

My fourth is Curious George Learns the Alphabet by H. A. Rey. I would need to have one alphabet book with me. I like this one because all letters are displayed in upper and lowercase. It also incorporates the sounds letters make. I do not usually read it in one sitting because it is kind of long. Students enjoy being challenged to make their own pictures out of letters. I also like The Turn-Around Upside Down Alphabet Book by Lisa Campbell Ernst.

My fifth is Because a Little Bug went Ka-CHOO! by Rosetta Stone. I really enjoy the sequence of events in this book. It starts with something so small and grows enormously. This book could be used to teach sequence of events, cause and effect, and prediction. I would also use any of Laura Numeroff's If You Give... books for this.

My sixth is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. We all need a little encouragement to try things sometimes. In life, there are so many things we want our children to experience but how will they if they don't try?



My seventh is It's Not Easy Being a Bunny by Marilyn Sadler. We are all amazing individuals with unique gifts and talents. I like this book because it encourages us to be ourselves. There are so many times I find children comparing themselves to others or trying to be like others. It would be a great book for a main idea discussion. Just The Way You Are by Marcus Pfister is another book that has a very similar main idea.

My eighth is A Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein. I love this book because it is fun. Kids laugh and read along with me. It is a great springboard to a discussion on rhyming. I also love Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss but I decided that each of my books had to be a different author.

My ninth choice is The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane DeRolf. This is a great story about how each of us is important and has something valuable to contribute. Each member of a classroom community is vital and necessary for the community to be complete. We are all so different but that is where the beauty is. Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is similar but my choice has more to do with the whole individual.


My tenth is Ish by Peter Reynolds. I love the message of this book. I like the idea that each of us has something to contribute. What will you contribute today?




Well, there you have it my #pb10for10. If you ask me tomorrow or later today, they may be different. I enjoyed being stretched by this exercise and look forward to reading all the other blogs. I am sure I will be adding a lot of books to my must have list.

Current Read

Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I am enjoying the newest series called: The Missing by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It is exploring time travel and missing children throughout history. Sent is the book that follows Found in the series. It is about Edward the Fifth and his brother Richard from the late 1400's in England. The characters go back in time to figure out what happened. The book was hard to put down. I also enjoyed the author's summary of her research at the end of the book. It is a great read for the middle grades. I believe it will also spark the reader's interest in the history of the late 1400's. I would suggest reading Found, which is the first book in the series, first. Happy Reading!

Current Read

Reading Essentials: The Specifics You Need to Teach Reading Well by Regie Routman is a book that I had previously begun to read but didn't get the opportunity to finish. The first chapter is titled: "Simplify Your Teaching Life." Who wouldn't want to do that?

Sometimes when reading a professional development book there is so much useful information in the book that it could be easy to go on information overload. I used to use Google Notebook(GN) to track things that I wanted to remember and put into place. I was frustrated when GN became obsolete. I think I lost all the information that I had saved on it. I have now decided to use a Moleskin journal to keep track of useful information. My goal is to write no more than three things from each chapter to implement and put into place.

How do you organize information from professional development? In what ways do you implement ideas from books or seminars in your classroom?

Theater in the Classroom

I love drama. I used to be a volunteer director for a youth drama group. Today I discovered some free theater curriculum while I was perusing a local children's theater website. I noticed that they had a professional development tab and discovered the curriculum on there. The curriculum was developed by the theater and a local school.

The theater is called Stages Theatre Company.

There are many benefits of using drama in the classroom including: building confidence in students, makes learning fun, and a way to get your kinesthetic learners involved and moving.

I have seen young people change and grow more confident by doing drama.

Have you used drama in your classroom? What resources have you used?

Organizing your Calendar as a Sub

I am going back to subbing for now. I haven't actually been back in the classroom yet this year. I have two more district sub meetings on the books right now and I have already attended one.

I prefer not to get calls in the morning or at night for that matter so I attempt to get my calendar full by watching the websites very closely. To help stay organized, I use my Google calendar to keep track of where I am supposed to be each day. I also block out days I am scheduled on all websites as unavailable so that I am not getting calls for days I am already scheduled.

Here is what I note on my Google Calendar:

• School
• District
• Teacher
• Grade
• Start Time
• Full Day (FD) or Half Day (HD)

Doing this not only keeps me organized by knowing where I am going when, it helps me to know who should be paying me what.

How do you keep yourself organized as a sub?